Over the last 25 years or more, manufacturers have invested in computer systems to help run their operations. Manufacturers designed the systems on an ad hoc basis. Early manufacturing information systems were custom built with specific software developed for a particular manufacturer's operating style, hardware, or reporting needs. These custom systems proved to be costly not only at the installation and implementation phases but also later when debugging after implementation. Because such a system is unique to the manufacturer, there exists no insight gained in the course of service of a particular product. Each installation was sui generis, an installation onto itself.
Throughout the nineties, large manufactures have moved toward the purchase of high-end commercial off-the-shelf software for the purpose of defining and completing several of the tasks necessary to manufacture product. The motivation for doing so was, at least two-fold. Manufactures spent less for the purchase of commercial grade off-the-shelf software, and the manufacturer could anticipate less downtime during service cycles because developers have derived much of the knowledge of particular glitches and bugs in servicing similar installations of the same software.
Nonetheless, these off-the-shelf software products carried with them a new hidden cost. Each of the off-the-shelf applications are, themselves, designed as the top-level logic necessary to control specific portions of the manufacturing process. Each functions as though in a vacuum without significant interaction with other systems.
Unfortunately, by placing these software products at the highest level, information managed by a particular software product is not accessible to those specifically permitted to use the information. Thus, MRPII/ERP systems cannot share information with CAD/CAM systems and likewise, CAD/CAM systems cannot share information with numeric control systems. Enterprise systems stand alone. As each system is put in place, it stands autonomous, where it reigns supreme over information necessary in its particular domain. As a result, the manufacturer who purchases some of the best software products in each field ends up isolating the information used for each phase of manufacturing.
Very few cross-system information portals exist. Those that do exist such as Enovia® for the CATIA® computer assisted drafting and design program do not actually port information across but rather act as a browser and extension of the program and not a proper portal for information by other manufacturers. The bridge is a human bridge, carrying information to the site needed. While such bridges do allow the broadcast of information controlled by the software, they do not afford an actual sharing of information between programs without the introduction of key operator error.
As a result of the vast number of computer products used in manufacture, the information necessary to make decisions within the factory exists in a patchwork quilt of domains in the control of a plurality of high-end programs analogous to the resources of feudal England in the control of a number of feudal lords. The effects of this feudal control over information can be seen through various sets of eyes within the manufacturing system. In studies conducted by the applicant, up to 45% of some worker's time spent in production is attributable to logging into and out of the various domains that control tools, design specifications, manpower tasking, and planning data. For instance, a lead machinist might spend 33 minutes per day per task receiving job assignments for the day; for each order it may take as much as 13 minutes to check the appropriate tools out of the tool crib and the necessary part data for assembly. The actual production of the part may take as little as 12 minutes per order, but then logging off of a particular part may take an additional 8 minutes per order. In short, a large part of a productive worker's day is given over to the task of logging into and out of various systems necessary to control data or tools.
On average, in one person's workday, 55% is spent in activities that add value to the manufactured product, the other 45% is given to administrative overhead of logging into and out of various systems to schedule work, track work, gather data necessary to do work, closing the work, and notifying a system of the completion of that work. Manual methods order and input data, order tools, parts and information, and execute hundreds of repetitive and routine transactions as though they were decisions requiring human judgment.
The administrative overhead of logging into and out of various systems has also proven to be the least satisfying portion of an individual worker's job tasking for a given day. The tasks appurtenant to the logging into and out of various systems are repetitive and redundant, and while computers have allowed automated production of many assemblies in the manufacturing process, they have not delivered on their promise to take repetitive and redundant work out of the realm of skilled labor. Computers are very well suited to performing the tasks of logging into and out of various domains and removing the information management overhead from the worker's day.
What is needed is a higher-level meta-layer of software that will lessen the information overhead and will be an effective port of information to all individuals at any level of the manufacturing process. Such a solution could also be used to port critical information to vendors, customers, and suppliers thereby allowing rapid changes in tooling in response to perceived needs. Management decisions with regard to such needs will be better informed where information can be ported to decision makers. A highly intuitive interface for presenting the information is desirable as the same will allow data that was previously available only to specialists to be presented to all who need to be “in the know” without paying a high training premium. Thus, what is needed is a browser-like interface for bi-directional access to manufacturing data.